Mrs. Willers shrugged her shoulders, and was wisely silent. Mariposa’s grief was making her unreasonable, that was all. To Shackleton she merely said that the girl was too ill and overwrought to see any one just yet. As soon as she was herself again Mrs. Willers would bring her to _The Trumpet_ office for the interview that was to be the opening of the new era. CHAPTER IX HOW COULD HE “Man is the hunter; woman is his game, The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; They love us for it, and we ride them down.” --TENNYSON. The month of Mariposa’s tenantry of the cottage was up. It was the last evening there, and she sat crouched over a handful of fire that burned in the front parlor grate. The room was half empty, all the superfluous furniture having been taken that morning by a Jewish second-hand dealer. In one corner stood huddled such relics as she had chosen to keep, and which would be borne away on the morrow to the Garcias’ boarding-house. The marquetry sideboard was gone. It had been sold to a Sutter Street dealer for twenty-five dollars. The red lacquer cabinet, though no longer hers, still remained. It, too, would be carried away to-morrow morning by its new owners. She looked at it with melancholy glances as the firelight found and lost its golden traceries and sent sudden quivering gleams along its scarlet doors. The fire was less a luxury than an economy, to burn the last pieces of coal in the bin. Bending over the dancing flames, Mariposa held her hands open to the blaze, absently looking at their backs. They were fine, capable hands, large and white, with strong wrists and a forearm so round that its swell began half-way between elbow and wrist-bone. Pleased by the warmth that soothed the chill always induced by a sojourn in the front parlor, she pulled up her sleeves and watched the gleam of the fire turn the white skin red. She was sitting thus, when a ring at the bell made her start and hurriedly push her sleeves down. Her visitors were so few that she was almost certain of the identity of this one. For all the griefs of the last month she was yet a woman. She sprang to her feet, and as the steps of the servant sounded in the hall, ran to the large mirror in the corner and patted and pulled her hair to the style she thought most becoming.